Cloud security: What enterprises of today require

CipherCloud, the cloud visibility and data protection provider, has released market research focusing on top cloud security requirements of enterprises today.

Based on a survey of large enterprises globally in the financial services, healthcare, telecommunications, retail and other industries, the report highlights that cloud security is now a platform proposition.

Of those surveyed, 89% of enterprises reported that they need protection across multiple clouds.

At the technology level, enterprises identify data protection (72%), visibility and monitoring (65%), data loss prevention (45%) and access logging and auditing (36%) as vital functions of an enterprise cloud security platform.

The findings provide an understanding of how large enterprises view their cloud usage and risk management needs.

Key findings from CipherCloud

Certain SaaS applications are well-entrenched in enterprise, the report shows.

For instance, 67% of the enterprises have either adopted or are in the process of adopting Salesforce.com, 62% have either adopted or are in the process of adopting Microsoft Office 365.

Box, ServiceNow, Workday and SuccessFactors follow Salesforce and Microsoft.

Enterprises want a multi-cloud security platform, not proprietary or cloud-specific cloud security solutions, the report finds. In fact, 89% of companies required security controls to extend across multiple cloud services.

Other top requirements for a cloud access security broker, coined by Gartner, include granular data protection and visibility into cloud operations.

Enterprises want a platform that they can control, supports multiple clouds and offers data protection and visibility, according to the report.

Responses also indicate that cloud digital rights management (DRM) is an emerging requirement for CASB, primarily driven by healthcare and financial services firms.

Data governance and data protection remain the top challenges for SaaS adoption at enterprises, with 78% of enterprises wanting better data governance and visibility with cloud applications. Of those, 63% want better tools to enforce data protection in a cloud environment.

This is evidence that, despite the maturing of cloud technologies, enterprises in general still struggle with governance and protection for cloud deployments, says CipherCloud. 

Enterprises increasingly demand cloud data loss prevention (DLP) and user activity monitoring. On this, 70% of enterprises engaged in the discussion of cloud discovery and monitoring want cloud DLP and 56% requested user activity monitoring as part of the discovery/monitoring solution.

More specifically, enterprises want real-time, context-based DLP in conjunction with user activity monitoring for cloud access.

The majority of enterprises want hybrid deployment for cloud discovery/monitoring functions. Over half (63%) of enterprises prefer a hybrid architecture and nearly all (82%) request log analysis to be performed on premises.

"Enterprises are taking a broader view of cloud security," says Pravin Kothari, CipherCloud founder and CEO.

"As they continue to adopt the cloud, enterprises are recognising the importance of a platform approach to fully protect their data," Kothari says.